Oil Sands

The other name for oil sands is Bituminous sands, sometimes referred to as tar sands, are a kind of unconventional petroleum deposit. The sands contain naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay, water, and a dense and very sticky form. The sands with natural mixtures of sand, clay, water, and a dense and totally in a sticky form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen. Oil sands are usually come in large amounts from many countries throughout the world. However are found in large quantities in Canada and Venezuela. The old technique used huge tumbler drums to form the slurry. Nowadays, hydro transplant pipelines are utilized to form and transfer the oil sand from the mine to the drawing out plant.

Oil sands often referred to as unconventional oil or crude bitumen, in order to differentiate the bitumen extracted from oil sands from the free-flowing hydrocarbon mixtures known as crude oil traditionally produced from oil wells. Another, oil sands, reserves have lately been regarded as a part of the world’s oil reserves, as higher oil process and new technology enable them to be profitably extracted and upgraded to usable products. The crude bitumen contained in the Canadian oil sands is described by Canadian authorities as petroleum that exists in the semi-solid or solid phase in natural deposits. Bitumen is a thick, sticky form of crude oil, so heavy and viscous (thick) that it will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons. At room temperature, it is much like cold molasses. Venezuelan authorities often refer to similar types of crude oil as extra-heavy oil, because Venezuelan reservoirs are warmer and the oil is somewhat less viscous, allowing it to flow more easily.

Making liquid fuels from oil sands requires energy for steam injection and refining. This process generates two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases per barrel of final product as the production of conventional oil. If combustion of the final products is included, the so-called "Well to Wheels" approach, oil sands extraction, upgrade and use emits 10 to 45% more greenhouse gases than conventional crude.

Over era, the actions of stream and bacteria distorted the light crude into bitumen, a much denser, carbon rich, and extremely gelatinous oil. The entitlement of bitumen in oil sand can array from 1% -20%. The oil drenched sand deposits left over from prehistoric rivers in 3 main areas, Peace River, Cold Lake and Athabasca. The Athabasca vicinity is the biggest and closest to the surface, secretarial for the large-scale oil sands expansion around Fort McMurray.